the Areopagus

 


This is an exciting story to me, a friend is in Athens this morning, and sent me pictures that are so totally familiar to me, but this Time making it as personal as if I were really there, the Areopagus from the parking side, and another, looking out on the city of Athens, Greece, 


brings it all back to mind, studies, and lectures, and blogposts, and sermons from forty years ago.

Telling it at Acts 17, Luke's story of St Paul's visit to Athens and the Areopagus is very exciting. He goes to the synagogue as always, then teaches and preaches to non-Jews, telling them about God and about Jesus. Athens is a city of many religions, where many different gods are worshiped and/or honored, and Paul notices shrines and other markers to all of them. Then, just in case they missed a god and don't want anyone's god to be offended, there's a shrine to "an unnamed god." In Luke's story, Paul picks up on this and declares that this unknown, unseen God is the God and Father of Jesus, the Son of God. 

By this Time in Luke's story, Paul has taken advantage of an opportunity to witness before the Areopagus, the city commission that meets up on Mars Hill, or Aries Hill. Luke's story is below (scroll down), from Acts 17:14 to when Paul leaves Athens at Acts 18:1. 

In reading Acts, it's important to bear in mind that this is not Paul's story about his adventures; rather, it's the story, told/written forty or fifty years later, by the anonymous author who wrote the Gospel according to Luke, and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Tradition ascribes the two writings to Luke, and has a story about Luke as the beloved physician who traveled with Paul. 

As for Paul himself, Paul's only mention of Athens is at 1 Thessalonians 3:1 (scroll way down), where Paul writes that he waited in Athens and sent Timothy to visit the Thessalonians and report back. So, we have Paul's own word that he was indeed in Athens with Timothy.

How much of Luke's stories about Peter and about Paul is historical fact? We can never know, and Paul couldn't edit or comment because Paul was some half-century dead when Luke wrote about Paul, but Luke/Acts is what we have and it's tremendously enriching!

I was very excited to receive these pictures this morning, from my friend right there On The Spot!

RSF&PTL

T89&c



 14 Then the believers immediately sent Paul away to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind. 15 Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.

Paul in Athens

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,

“For we too are his offspring.”

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33 At that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

18:1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

1 Thessalonians 3:1
1 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens; 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker for God in proclaiming the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you ...